The advent of cloud-based computing architectures has opened new possibilities for the rapid and scalable deployment of virtual Web stores, media outlets, social networking sites, and many other on-line sites or services. In general, a cloud-based architecture deploys a set of hosted resources such as processors, operating systems, software and other components that can be combined together to form virtual machines. A user or customer can request the instantiation of a virtual machine or set of machines from those resources from a central server or cloud management system to perform intended tasks, services, or applications. For example, a user may wish to set up and instantiate a virtual server from the cloud to create a storefront to market products or services on a temporary basis, for instance, to sell tickets to or merchandise for an upcoming sports or musical performance. The user can subscribe to the set of resources needed to build and run the set of instantiated virtual machines on a comparatively short-term basis, such as hours or days, for their intended application.
Typically, when a user utilizes a cloud, the user must track the software applications executed in the cloud and/or processes instantiated in the cloud. For example, the user must track the cloud processes to ensure that the correct cloud processes have been instantiated, that the cloud processes are functioning properly and/or efficiently, that the cloud is providing sufficient resources to the cloud processes, and so forth. Due in part to the user's requirements and overall usage of the cloud, the user may have many applications and/or processes instantiated in a cloud at any given instant, and the user's deployment of virtual machines, software, and other resources can change dynamically over time. In cases, the user may also utilize multiple independent host clouds to support the user's cloud deployment. That user may further instantiate and use multiple applications or other software or services inside or across multiple of those cloud boundaries, and those resources may be used or consumed by multiple or differing end-user groups in those different cloud networks.
In terms of the management of a set of virtual machines operated by a user in a cloud, at times the user's consumption of resources in the cloud can vary and/or spike, at different times and/or under different conditions. Since in one regard consumption spikes may entail enhanced or increased subscription costs to the user, that user may wish to attempt to manage their executing workload by way of potential migration to lower-cost or otherwise alternative host clouds or providers. Existing cloud management platforms do not provide the cloud user or operator with tools to configure or manage a set of policies to trigger those types of migrations, based on dynamically changing parameters or conditions which can be set to comprise different types, depths, dependencies, and/or other combinations of workload parameters at different times or under different resource consumption conditions, such as functionally tying resource consumption limits or thresholds to dynamic workload conditions such as varying transaction rates or messaging throughput, for example.
It may be desirable to provide systems and methods for triggering workload movement based on a policy stack having multiple selectable inputs, in which a user can set up, configure, and administer a migration policy stack which can combine multiple or different selectable triggers, conditions, and/or functions to initiate workload migrations based on criteria which can dynamically change at different times or otherwise adapt to different operating conditions of the user's workload or workloads.